🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug5.062852.5646@sbcs.sunysb.edu> rscott@csws4.ic.sunysb.edu (Robert Scott) writes:
>THE KINEMATICS OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY IS SIMPLE COMMON SENSE, A SIMPLE AND
>INEVITABLE RESULT OF SPEED-OF-LIGHT DELAYS.  (ROBERT FIRTH AND DARYL
>MCCULLOUGH HAVE EXPLAINED THIS RATHER CLEARLY MANY TIMES HERE ON SCI.PHYSICS,
>I THOUGHT.)

Thank you for the endorsement, but I must regretfully disclaim the
opinion you attribute to me.  Yes, I believe that a lot of SR is
much less mystical and paradoxical than many people suppose - for
example, the 'Barn and Pole' paradox that I wrote up for the FAQ
list seems to me a simple matter of clear postulates plus common
sense (too bad the editor changed the original numbers).

However, I do not believe all of SR can be explained by signal
delays.  If I did, I'd be a happier camper.  For me, the crux
is the phenomenon called time dilation.  As far as I know, it's
real, it's been observed, there is no good explanation for it
other than SR, and, most important, it is a phenomenon whose
consequences (slow clocks) persist even after everything has
been brought to relative rest and all signals have got wherever
they were going.  If Howard Hayden or whoever can pull down
that pillar, the whole edifice will collapse; but so far I
see a lot of straining and grunting, and few signs of imminent
structural failure.  But hope is perenneal, as my $25 cheques
to Galilaean Electrodynamics are annual.

Robert Firth